As you approach retirement, managing your savings and investments becomes one of your top priorities. You want to make sure you have enough saved, have the right investments, a solid distribution strategy, and more. But one thing that you can’t overlook is your responsibility to handle something called Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)—mandatory withdrawals from certain retirement accounts once you reach a specific age. Failing to take these distributions on time can lead to significant penalties. In this post, we’ll break…
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Best Discounts After You Turn 60
Turning 60 is a big deal. Sure, you’re not quite the age where you can claim Medicare, but reaching the golden years still has advantages, especially when you can now use senior discounts on some of your most frequent purchases (and even the fun ones too). Senior discounts are easily one of the biggest benefits of turning older. Getting discounts from your favorite stores, restaurants, and other entertainment can help you stretch your budget while still living life to the…
5 Ways to Make Your Home Easier as You Age
As you get older, it is important to start thinking about where you’ll spend your retirement. While some people opt for a retirement community, many would prefer to stay in their own homes (or “age in place”). Choosing to spend your retirement in your own home has many benefits. For starters, it can be cheaper than moving into a retirement community, is often more comfortable, and lets you stay active with your established social network. However, the reality is that…
The Downside of Diversification
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. If you’ve been researching investments for any length of time, you’ve probably heard that admonition. You might also have heard – “there is no free lunch – except diversification. That quote is attributed to economist Harry Markowitz, who won a Nobel peace price for his work on something called Modern Portfolio Theory. In other words, this idea of diversification is highly revered, even among the higher echelon of investment advisors and economists….
The Only Annuity Strategy I Would Ever Use
I do not love annuities. I don’t even like them. I’ve never recommended them to clients, and I highly doubt that would ever change. It’s still not even going to change today. That said, there is one strategy where I think it makes sense for some people. Before we get into the strategy, let’s briefly discuss the two annuities I really don’t like, and then we’ll talk about the one I dislike the least. First is the Variable Annuity. A…
Your Credit Score Is Overrated. Focus On This Instead
We hear so much commentary about our credit scores. Hacks to get a perfect credit score. Why your credit score is oh so important. Why your credit score will make you a happier person. After a while, it’s easy to fall into the hype and start obsessing over your credit score. But there is one glaring problem with all this focus on your credit score: HAVING A GOOD CREDIT SCORE DOESN’T MEAN THAT YOU’RE FINANCIALLY SUCCESSFUL. Just imagine someone who makes a good…
Why I Don’t Budget And What To Do Instead
It might be odd to hear that a Financial Advisor doesn’t budget. Kind of like hearing that the butcher doesn’t eat meat. It makes you pause for a second. Do they really believe what they say? Do they eat their own cooking? And it’s true, I don’t budget. At least not in the traditional sense of the term. I used to have complex spreadsheets in Excel that tracked everything that I spent. And I looked at it every month to…
Planning For Your Passing
Now we all know the reality, none of us are getting out of this alive. But despite people knowing that intuitively, there’s still a lot of procrastination around this type of planning. Depending on where you look, only 30 to 40% of people don’t have an estate plan in place. And while there are no statistics on this because it’d be impossible to determine, I can tell you from first hand experience as a financial advisor who talks to other…
Beware of the Financial “Expert”
We all search for people to learn from that we hope to eventually know, like, and trust. Especially when it comes to the complex financial world we live in. Instead of trying to figure it all out ourselves, it makes all the sense in the world to seek out experts who can help us understand the financial world around us. As a result, many of us develop an affinity to these so called financial experts. They are people we’ll never…
What Happens When You Mix Politics And Investing
Hello everybody welcome back to the blog. I am excited to be back and owe you all a big apology for going dark for 8 whole months! It was a nice break and I’m hoping that going forward I will do at least 2 blogs a month. Now let’s just into today’s blog, about what happens when you mix politics and investing. For some background, I have been a financial advisor since 2015, right before Donald Trump announced his run…